OUR FAVOURITE BEVERAGE

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 24 August 1935, Page 10

OUR FAVOURITE BEVERAGE

MANUFACTURE OF TEA Tea was a great luxury when it wgs first, introduced in England about the middle of the seventeenth century. Each pound cost from £6 to £lO, so only rich people bought it, and even they drank it only on important occasions. Samuel Pepys wrote the following in his famous diary on September 28, 1660: “I did send for a cup of tea, a China drink which I had never drank before.” To-day the annual iconsximption of tea in Great Britain is 9.02 pounds a head=>nearly ten times as much as was consumed a hundred years ago. The cost of a pound of tea in New Zealand' now ranges from about 2s to 4s.

Native of China, Japan and India, the tea plant grows best in the light loamy soil of forest lands. The plant would grow to 30 feet in height if it were allowed to, but it is always pruned back well to encourage good leaf growth. The leaves are leathery and tapering with saw-like edges, while the pretty flowers resemble wild roses. It is said that tea has been cultivated for five thousand years in China, where for many centuries it was used only as a. medicine.

The seeds of the tea plant are grown in special seed beds, and as soon as the tiny plants are strong enough, they are planted out into well irrigated rows where theY are carefully protected

from the sun. The first leaves are picked when the plant is about three years old, and when the plant grows older as many as four pickings a year are made. There are two main classes of tea, black and green. After the leaves have been picked, black tea is manufactured for use by a process of withering; and hardening the leaves under heat, light and air. When the leaves are sufficiently withered they are rolled so that their juices are well mixed j after being rolled they are spread out to ferment. The leaves are then heated again to stop further fermentation, and after a careful examination they are packed ready for sale. Three well-grown kinds of black tea are pekoe, souchong and congou. Pekoe, whieh is the Chinese word for white hair, is made up of the three leaves which grow nearest the top of the shoot; these leaves have white down on them when they are picked, hence the name. iSouchong is the tea which is made up of the leaves which grow under the pekoe. Souchong means “"smaller sort.” Congou tea is made up of leaves of the third picking, i.e., those which grow under the souchong. Congou (much labour) is so named because a great deal of work is necessary to make this kind of tea fit for use. Green tea Js manufactured by a much quicker process than is black tea. The green .tea is not aired so much as Iho black, but it is baked for a much longer time. Most China tea is of the green variety. It is different in appearance from black tea, being lighter in colour, with a slight green tinge. It is rarely imported to New Zealand. Por many years Britain imported most of her tea from China, but since the tea industry has advanced so much in India and in Ceylon, she has procured the main bulk of. her tea from these two countries. Black China tea of the good quality, however, is becoming more popular again with the British people.